The International Year of Rangelands and Pastoralists 2026 highlights the importance of grasslands and pastoral communities for food security, biodiversity, and climate resilience.
Half of Earth’s land surface is covered by grasslands, savannas, shrublands, steppes, and other open landscapes collectively known as rangelands. Yet despite their enormous ecological and cultural importance, these ecosystems are often overlooked in global climate and conservation discussions.
The United Nations is trying to change that. The UN has officially declared 2026 the International Year of Rangelands and Pastoralists, a global initiative aimed at drawing attention to the ecosystems and communities that sustain roughly one billion people worldwide. Led by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the campaign highlights the role pastoralists and rangelands play in food systems, biodiversity conservation, cultural heritage, and climate resilience.
Rangelands include a huge diversity of landscapes, from African savannahs and Mongolian steppes to Arctic tundra, mountain grasslands, deserts, and semi-arid grazing lands. Together, they cover approximately 54% of the Earth’s land surface.
Pastoralists are the people whose livelihoods depend largely on grazing livestock across these landscapes. Worldwide, pastoral communities manage around one billion animals, including cattle, sheep, goats, camels, yaks, horses, reindeer, and buffalo. The declaration aims to raise awareness that these communities are not relics of the past, but active stewards of ecosystems that remain essential for both people and the planet.
According to the FAO, rangelands support biodiversity, regulate water systems, store carbon, and provide livelihoods for hundreds of millions of people. Yet many rangelands are increasingly threatened by land degradation, agricultural expansion, mining, infrastructure development, and restrictions on traditional migration routes.
The UN Convention to Combat Desertification has warned that the “silent demise” of rangelands could have serious consequences for food systems, climate resilience, and the well-being of billions of people. One major issue is mobility. Many pastoral systems depend on seasonal migration patterns that allow grazing lands to recover naturally over time.
However, fences, borders, privatization, and land conversion increasingly restrict those movements. Researchers say limiting pastoral mobility can worsen land degradation because herds become concentrated in smaller areas rather than rotating across landscapes as they naturally would.
The International Year of Rangelands and Pastoralists is therefore also about protecting traditional ecological knowledge and land management systems that have evolved over centuries. Pastoralists often possess deep knowledge of drought cycles, grazing patterns, animal behavior, water sources, and ecosystem dynamics.
In many regions, these practices have helped maintain biodiversity and resilience in harsh environments for generations. This knowledge is gaining renewed attention as climate change intensifies droughts, desertification, and extreme weather.
Scientists increasingly recognize that healthy rangelands can play an important role in climate adaptation and carbon storage. Grassland soils store enormous amounts of carbon underground, sometimes rivaling forests in their long-term carbon potential. At the same time, well-managed grazing systems can support biodiversity and improve soil health.
However, rangelands are often misunderstood. Because they may appear dry or sparsely vegetated compared to forests, they are sometimes wrongly viewed as “unused” land available for agriculture or development. Conservation experts argue that this perception has contributed to large-scale land conversion and degradation. The International Year of Rangelands and Pastoralists seeks to challenge that narrative by emphasizing the ecological value of open landscapes and the people who depend on them.
The campaign also highlights the cultural dimension of pastoralism. Across the world, pastoral communities maintain languages, traditions, food systems, music, and social structures deeply connected to movement across landscapes. From Maasai herders in East Africa to Sámi reindeer herders in northern Europe and nomadic camel herders in Central Asia, pastoral cultures form part of humanity’s cultural diversity.
The International Year of Rangelands and Pastoralists recognizes pastoral communities, such as the Maasai herders in East Africa, as key stewards of ecosystems covering more than half of Earth’s land surface. Photo by Sofia Zubiria on Unsplash.
Throughout 2026, hundreds of conferences, workshops, exhibitions, and community events are being organized globally to mark the International Year of Rangelands and Pastoralists. The initiative is encouraging governments, researchers, Indigenous groups, NGOs, and pastoral communities to collaborate on more sustainable land management policies.
Importantly, the campaign is not solely focused on conservation. It also addresses food security and economic resilience. Pastoral systems provide meat, milk, wool, leather, and other products that support livelihoods and regional economies.
In many dryland regions where crop farming is difficult, pastoralism remains one of the most viable forms of food production. Climate pressures are making these systems increasingly vulnerable. Droughts, changing rainfall patterns, land fragmentation, and political instability are creating growing uncertainty for many pastoral communities.
See also: Transforming Africa’s Savannahs: The Wildebeest’s Role in Climate Solutions
That vulnerability is one reason the UN decided to spotlight rangelands globally in 2026. The International Year of Rangelands and Pastoralists reflects a broader shift in environmental thinking: recognizing that people and ecosystems are often deeply interconnected rather than separate.
Instead of treating pastoralism as outdated, the initiative frames pastoral communities as essential knowledge holders and land stewards in a rapidly changing world. As climate and biodiversity crises intensify, that perspective may become increasingly important. Because protecting the future of rangelands may ultimately mean protecting both ecosystems and the people who have sustained them for generations.
